millevsmullConfusable pair

Quick tell: mille is a noun, mull is a verb, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“mille” is a noun and “mull” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#37,096
“mille” frequency rank
#31,263
“mull” frequency rank
68359
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature mille mull
Definition Alternative spelling of mill. To work (over) mentally; to cogitate; to ruminate.

Letter map: mille vs mull

Shared letters muted; letters that set mille and mull apart highlighted. Shared run: 3. mille runs 5 letters (CVCCV) against mull's 4 (CVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

5 ch
mille
4 ch
mull

Part-of-speech tell for mille / mull

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: mille is anoun and mullaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 68359, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

mille is recorded at frequency rank #37,096, classified as anoun. mull is at rank #31,263, tagged as averb, pronounced /mʌl/.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 68359, this pair ranks #59,211 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of mille vs mull

Shared letters: lm. Private to "mille": ei. Private to "mull": u.

"mille" · 5 letters · shape CVCCV  ·  "mull" · 4 letters · shape CVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • mille ← imlle · milel · mlile · mmille
  • mull ← mlul · mmull · mul · umll

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "mille" for "mull" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "mille" is a noun and "mull" a verb, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "mille" or "mull" show up more?
"mull" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #31,263 in our English list, against #37,096 for "mille". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

Useful next steps

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "mille" and "mull".

  • Full dictionary entry for "mille" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "mull" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #59,211 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "mille" and "mull" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "Mie vs mille". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #59,211 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list